Paper Lions
by Ardent Kat
Summary: Chihiro confuses self-esteem for love and fantasy with reality as she opens up to her ambiguously sexual attraction to Mitsuru. Mitsuru contemplates her unique relationship with Akihiko during a lovers' tryst. Chihiro/Mitsuru, Mitsuru/Akihiko. One-shot


_Note: Androphobia in this story only represents Chihiro's biased perspective, not to be confused with the author's opinions about men._

**Paper Lions**

"Thank you, council members," Mitsuru said. "That concludes our meeting. We'll see you Friday."

The other student council members gathered up their belongings and chatted on their way out, but Chihiro lingered behind as always. She wanted to prove her total dedication as council treasurer, to stand out above the apathetic student council members who put in the bare minimum of effort. She pushed in chairs and straightened the desks into immaculate rows, sweeping eraser crumbs from the desktops. All the while, she kept the council president, Mitsuru Kirijo, in her peripheral vision.

Mitsuru stayed seated for a few minutes, jotting a few last-minute notes to herself. She never wrote things down while someone else was talking, but always gave her full attention to each student while they spoke. She wrote her notes down later during lulls in discussion or after the meeting was over. Chihiro didn't say much during meetings so she was seldom the subject of Mitsuru's focused attention, but she privately admired the president's thoughtfulness.

Mitsuru closed her notebook and stood, smoothing her skirt. No matter the season, whether it was finals week or midterms, she always looked pristine and elegant. Like a Greek statue, Chihiro thought. Untouchable by time.

The rest of the student council members had gone, but like a good leader, Mitsuru made sure she was always the last to leave. She picked up an eraser from the tray beneath the blackboard and began cleaning it with long even strokes. "Thanks for hard work, Fushimi-san," she said, pausing from her work. "I appreciate how I can always count on you."

Chihiro felt a shiver of excitement bolt through her. It happened every time Mitsuru addressed her directly, especially when she saw fit to praise her. She could feel heat rising to her face already. "Oh," she said. "It's nothing. I like to help." She turned aside so her long hair swung to cover her face, concealing her blush.

"I don't just mean with cleanup." Mitsuru finished with the board and brushed the chalk dust from her hands. "Your treasury report today was impressive. I didn't expect you to have those numbers ready, but it really helped us to have them."

Chihiro pressed her knees together and fidgeted with delight. She wasn't due to give an update on the council's finances for at least another week, but she'd already tallied receipts and payments from the recent sports festival down to the last yen. When the council was trying to project a budget for the school's winter festival, Mitsuru started using a rough estimate, but Chihiro was able to give her an up-to-the-minute update on exactly where the council stood financially. "It was easy," Chihiro said. She swallowed hard and spoke before her nerves made her choke again: "I mean, it was easy with your leadership, Kirijo-senpai. You bring out the best in all of us." She forced herself to look up and meet the president's gaze.

Mitsuru looked genuinely pleased with the compliment and Chihiro suddenly felt like someone must have turned up the lights. Mitsuru's smile brightened the whole room.

"Don't be so modest," she said. "It takes a whole team to make a successful council. You go above and beyond and you deserve recognition for it."

_You deserve recognition._ Chihiro didn't think she'd ever heard those words before. No one ever noticed what she did. For all anyone acknowledged her in the halls at school, it was like she blended in with the walls like a chameleon. She worked harder than most other students and earned higher marks, but she always faded into the background when compared to her more charismatic and outspoken classmates. She was reliable, predictable, and utterly overlookable. It felt amazing to have her work finally acknowledged, especially by Mitsuru of all people. Chihiro drank deep from the deluge of her praise.

"And please. Call me Mitsuru."

"Oh, okay. Sure thing, Mitsuru-sempai. And, uhm… You can call me Chihiro." She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, but she had to press her lips together to hold back a crazed giggle. There was a scene just like this in the latest volume of her favorite _shoujo _manga_._ The lead character and her love interest don't quite confess their feelings to each other, but they took the step of calling each other by their first names—a clear step into a closer ring of intimacy.

The hint of an amused smile colored Mitsuru's lips. "As you wish."

Chihiro stood in place, basking in Mitsuru's presence and lost in fantasy. The student council president radiated confidence and authority like a queen, but she always stayed humble, deigning to praise even the most forgettable of her subjects. There was a character like her in one of Chihiro's favorite manga series—a confident warrior queen who protected the people and stood up to the rival nation's evil king without fear. As soon as Chihiro made the connection in her mind, she started to think of that character as Mitsuru herself in manga form. She began reading and rereading each volume of the series voraciously. Mitsuru was the Virgin Queen—a champion of the people and an upright protector, a woman who she put her duty first, even at the cost of a love life.

Mitsuru's elegance could never be compared to the posturing swagger of the male heroes from _shonen _manga. Male protagonists weren't the source of Chihiro's adrophobia, but they certainly confirmed her distaste for men. They were usually possessors and users of the other characters, prone to violent outbursts and manipulating events for their own desires. Not white knight heroines like Mitsuru, though. They were thoughtful leaders, considerate of the needs of others, and standing up for the sake of justice instead of selfish egoism.

In real life, too, boys were self-centered if not outright dangerous. In middle school, she already had trouble talking with boys and felt anxious around them. This discomfort spread to a full-blown phobia when she was assaulted at the beach in her freshman year. A gang of college boys had grabbed her on the way to the washroom, forcefully touching her breasts and shoving sand down her panties, rasping her vulva.

Ever since the trauma, Chihiro longed for the safe egalitarian environment of an all-girls' school but her parents were too poor to afford it. Besides, they wanted her in a co-ed environment in hopes that she would gradually recover from her phobia of men. But at Gekkoukan, Chihiro's anxiety around boys only compounded. She even lost faith in the sisterhood of female students, as one by one, they all seemed to be infected with the same boy-crazy madness as late adolescence set in.

She could never understand the fuss other girls made over the boys at their school. Her male classmates were shallow and crude-mouthed. They bullied their own friends as a source of humor, and their main topics for conversation were sports, sex, and violence. When she overheard boys talking about girls, it was usually with a tone of conquest and acquisition, talking about "getting" girls and lusting over their bodies with no consideration for the girl's brains and personality.

In stark contrast, when her female classmates talked about boys they liked, it was always with respect and interest. Looks were important, but never more so than a boy's personality or his hobbies. Girl students worked harder, complained less, and demanded less recognition. They were sensitive and thoughtful. Those were the qualities Chihiro valued in a romantic relationship, and if none of the cavemen at Gekkoukan could offer her that ideal love, then she would gladly stay single forever. She preferred the fantasy of gentle and sensitive men in her shoujo manga to the reality of high school Neanderthals any day.

Mitsuru looked a little awkward in the compounding silence and she glanced at the clock. "Well, it looks like we're all done here." A tactful way of saying it was time to leave.

"Y-yes, of course," Chihiro said, recovering from her daydreaming. "I won't keep you from your afternoon plans." She scooped up her book bag and the paper shopping bag leaning against her desk.

"I'll walk you to the lockers," Mitsuru said.

Chihiro nodded, inwardly shivering with delight. When they walked the hall together, Chihiro was no longer invisible, but subject to curious looks now that she was in Mitsuru's company.

"Who's that with Mitsuru-sempai?"

"I don't recognize her. Maybe she's new here."

Mitsuru stood taller than most of the other girls and moved with a confident stride. As Chihiro watched out the corner of her eye, she couldn't help but notice that Mitsuru not only displayed the ideal traits of womanhood, but of masculinity as well: authority, strength, and self-confidence. She was everything that would make a good boyfriend, but with all the safety and sensitivity of a woman. In Mitsuru, Chihiro found something that was better than the reality of boys or the fantasy of manga.

"Are you going to the winter festival?" Mitsuru asked to fill the silence.

Chihiro shook her head. "I don't have anyone to go with. I mean… I don't really feel like it." After summoning her courage, she dared to ask, "What about you, Mitsuru-sempai?"

"I don't think so. I'll probably be studying."

"Do you have s-someone that you'd want to go with if you did?" Before she lost confidence she blurted, "Like a boyfriend?"

Mitsuru actually laughed. "Goodness, no. I've got enough on my mind without distractions like that. I'm going to have an arranged marriage one day, so it's pointless to date in the meantime."

A possessive smile shivered across Chihiro's lips. _I knew it. I knew Mitsuru was too classy to want any of the boys at this school. _She was glad she'd finally had the courage to ask. For some reason, she couldn't stand the thought of Mitsuru with any man. She preferred her own image of Mitsuru as the Virgin Queen, putting valor ahead of her own desires, even ahead of love. Maybe Chihiro had no claim to Mitsuru's attentions, but at least no one else did, either.

"I want to sh-show you something." Chihiro gripped the handles of the paper shopping bag she'd carried to school with her every student council day for the last two weeks. She was just waiting for the right time, to work up enough nerve.

"Hmm?" Mitsuru cocked her head with interest as they walked.

Chihiro reached into the bag and pulled out the fragile paper globe made from origami lilies. It was ornate _kusudama_—dozens of small origami flowers sewn together at the base until they made a perfect sphere. "It took me a week," she said. She held up the sphere of paper lilies by its string hanger. A green tassel hung below like Chinese lantern, approximating the lilies' stems . "I'm still practicing."

Mitsuru took the offered_ kusudama_ and inspected it politely. "Beautiful," she said. "Are you going to enter it in the craft fair?"

"No," Chihiro said. "I-I wanted you to have it, Mitsuru-sempai. As a thank-you for all the work you do for the student council."

Mitsuru gave another of her room-brightening smiles. "How thoughtful of you!" She held the ball up by the string, admiring it anew.

"I thought you could use it to decorate your desk," Chihiro said. After plenty of contemplation, she decided this was the place Mitsuru would probably see it the most, and maybe think of her.

"Or maybe I should keep it by the window to make sure the flowers get enough light," Mitsuru said with a wry smile. It was the closest Chihiro had ever heard Mitsuru come to cracking a joke. She felt privileged that Mitsuru was comfortable enough to say something silly around her.

She blushed furiously and pushed up her glasses. "Oh! Well, I just remembered I left something in my homeroom class," Chihiro blurted. As much as she cherished the moment with Mitsuru, she was gripped by the sudden urge to flee. Things were going unbelievably well and she needed to leave before anything could break the crystalline perfection of the afternoon.

"See you Friday," Mitsuru said.

Chihiro just bit her lips together to hide her giddy smile, clutching her book bag to her chest as she ran.

She felt high and dreamy the whole walk home, her mind swimming with Mitsuru's praise, and the warm reception to her origami gift. And overarching it all was the sense of deep _relief_ that Mitsuru didn't have a boyfriend. She didn't know why it mattered to her so much, but she couldn't stand the thought.

#

#

#

A week later, Chihiro brought the paper shopping bag to class again. This time it was loaded with a menagerie of origami animals—elephants, giraffes, cranes, lions. She stayed up late at night and struggled through every page of _Origami Zoo_, making every animal in the book, sometimes practicing twenty times or more before the finished animal looked good enough to give as a gift. When she was done, she lay out the assembly on her desk and decided the animals looked lonely. There was only one of each of species, and she decided to make a pair of each instead. She considered making a boy and a girl of every animal, but she didn't like the results after she made a few pairs using a different-colored paper for the boys. It felt like the girl animals were overshadowed somehow. Besides, the origami lions didn't have manes, so those were both girls for sure. She ended up making two of each animal, but with identical paper colors for each species. Mitsuru could choose for herself what to think of them.

She felt antsy all through the student council meeting, eager to share the fruits of her hard work. All through the meeting, Mitsuru looked rushed and distracted for some reason. She kept glancing at the clock as she packed her book bag when the meeting was over.

No matter, Chihiro thought. Mitsuru was always the last one to leave, so she'd still have a chance to give her the present. If something was bothering her, maybe the cute paper animals would be just the thing to lift her spirits. She smiled to herself, rubbing her sore fingertips together. After a week of paper folding, the first three fingers on each hand were red and chaffed raw. She'd looked at so many origami diagrams over the last few nights she saw reverse folds and valley folds in her sleep. But it would all be worth it to see Mitsuru's smile. If she was feeling brave enough, Chihiro even hoped to ask Mitsuru if she wanted to visit the bookstore together after class or maybe the arcade in town.

She smoothed her hair and pushed up her glasses as she approached her. "Uhm, Mitsuru-sempai…"

"Ahh, Fushimi." She forgot to call her Chihiro. "I'm glad you're here. I'm afraid there's something I have to attend to this afternoon. Can I leave it to you to finish straightening up here?"

Chihiro blinked. "Oh. I mean, o-of course."

Mitsuru smiled in relief. "Thank you. I know I can count on you." She picked up her book bag and strode out the door, the heels of her boots clicking on the tile hallway.

Chihiro looked at the blackboard still covered in writing, a wadded piece of paper someone forgot to throw away, then back at Mitsuru's departing back. She seemed bothered by something. Maybe it was something that Chihiro could help with. Mitsuru always seemed calm and collected, but surely she needed someone to confide in once in a while. She stood in the doorway and bit her lip in indecision, looking at the messy student council room, then back to Mitsuru. I'll clean it later, she decided. She scooped up the paper bag that rustled with animal pairs and hustled through the halls to follow.

Tailing Mitsuru through the school felt like an adventure in one of her fantasy novels. She thrilled at every intersection, wondering where Mitsuru would go next. She expected her to head out the front doors and into town, but instead she headed into the school gym of all places. Chihiro followed her into the gymnasium, frowning at the smell of sweat that lingered in the air after the boys' basketball practice. She slimmed herself against the wall to stay out of sight as Mitsuru took a cautious look around and let herself into the equipment room where the volleyball nets and old football gear were stored. What was she_ doing?_

Once Mitsuru was inside, Chihiro snuck along the wall and peeked through the narrow rectangular window in the door. She saw the school's boxing champion, Akihiko Sanada, sitting on a pile of folded wrestling mats. He rested his head on his knuckles and stared at the floor, looking depressed as a man contemplating suicide. As soon as he saw Mitsuru, he gave a weak smile and rose to his feet. "Thanks for coming."

Chihiro bristled. What was this? Some kind of lovers' tryst? She wrinkled her nose. Why did it have to be him? A sweaty, testosterone-crazed _boxer _of all people! Mitsuru was far too elegant and refined to stoop to the trough of Gekkoukan's jocks. Wasn't she? Chihiro felt the sharp lance of betrayal as she realized that Mitsuru had lied to her outright about having a boyfriend.

Mitsuru just nodded to Akihiko, her arms crossed under her breasts. Her body posture was cold and Chihiro dared to hope for a moment that she was here against her will. "What is it? You had me so worried I left Fushimi to clean up the council room by herself."  
"Who?"

"Never mind. What's wrong?"

* * *

"Never mind," Mitsuru said. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry." Akihiko grimaced and rubbed his forehead as if from a stabbing headache. "I just needed to see you. I actually skipped boxing practice today. I don't know if I can keep this up."

Mitsuru blinked in surprise. Akihiko had perfect attendance for his practices. Even when he was sick as a dog and too ill to spar, he'd still show up to work with the punching bags or jump rope. "Is this about Nyx coming?"

He raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Sort of."

"We're going to win. You know that. You can't psyche yourself out now." She spoke with the commanding authority her father always used with subordinates. Fearlessness in leaders inspired confident and loyalty in others.

"It's not that," he said. "I mean, I'm not like Junpei who wants to stop going to class for the next few weeks on the off-chance we don't make it. Who would want to spend their final days in a classroom?"

"That's a defeatist attitude," she said, her mouth set in a hard line. She didn't like the way this was going. She knew Akihiko struggled privately with depression, but he recognized it as the irrational effects of a chemical imbalance. When it came to his conscious mind and his daily decisions, he was an optimist by choice, and relentlessly hardworking. That was the man Mitsuru fell in love with—the one who would rather tear down the world and rebuild it with his bare hands before he would consider quitting. "If you want to lounge around these last few weeks, you're admitting to yourself that we might lose. It'll lower the morale of the whole team." She crossed her arms tighter against her chest. The underclassmen in S.E.E.S. looked up to them. If she or Akihiko started slipping, the whole team could crumble. Especially Ken. He idolized Akihiko like no one else.

"I'm not giving up," Akihiko said firmly. "I know we're going to win. I'm not pounding down cream puffs like Yukari or, you know, praying at the shrine every afternoon like Fuuka. You can tell they're scared as hell. They're not sure that we'll make it."

"So what's the problem?" Her gaze was hard. _Don't be like this, Akihiko. I like when you're demure around me, but not __**weak.**_

"It's not a problem. It's like…" He scratched his nails through his hair, trying to find the words. "I guess it'd be like finding out you have cancer, you know? Even if you survive, it makes you reorganize your priorities. Even though I'm sure we're going to win, this whole thing made me aware of my mortality for the first time. I mean, we're going to overcome Nyx in a couple weeks, but after that I'm still going to die one day. It'll just be a few decades later. It made me start wondering about how I spend my time." He looked up at Mitsuru and reached out his hand. "I mean, how I'd like to be spending more of my time."

Mitsuru relaxed and unfolded her arms. "You know what I've been feeling lately?"

"What?"

"Everything." She gave him an easy smile and took his hand in hers. "I've started waking up in time to watch the sun rise. It's something I appreciated in passing before, but now I savor every minute."

Akihiko nodded and squeezed her hand. "Yeah. Sounds like you know what I'm talking about."

"I don't think it's a bad thing to realize that we won't live forever. Instead of going through my day in a fog of busyness, I'm able to slow down and appreciate things. Class feels tranquil instead of dull. Colors look brighter. I even appreciate sleep more and how refreshed I feel."

Akihiko chuckled. "Unlike Junpei, who keeps pumping himself full of caffeine. He wants to be awake for every moment he can."

"'I'll sleep when I'm dead'?" Mitsuru quoted Iori's favorite rationale for staying up late.

Akihiko smiled. "Yep. That's the one. Gee, you'd think we share a dorm with the guy or something."

"So what do you think?" Mitsuru smoothed the front of Akihiko's cardigan. "Do you think you can take this new awareness of life and see something beautiful with it?"

"I see something beautiful right now."

"Cheesy!" Mitsuru rolled her eyes and gave him a lighthearted shove, but she felt the heat rise to her face as she blushed. She lost the battle to suppress a smile.

Akihiko smiled back. The dullness of depression left his eyes, replaced with the sharp determination that first attracted her. "Thanks, Mitsuru." He put his arms around her waist and pulled her a little closer. "You're a pretty smart lady, you know that?"

"And you're my star pupil." She arched an eyebrow at him and gave him a wry smile of approval.

"You're right, though," he said. "I _have_ noticed food tastes better lately."

"Just food?" She gripped the front of his sweater and pulled him in for a kiss.

He met her open mouth with his and they kissed in the darkness of the equipment room, surrounded by the shadowy figures of furled soccer nets and padded football gear. She raked her fingernails through his short-cropped hair and felt his body shiver against her in response.

"Mmm," he said as their kiss ended. He leaned close against her, burying his face in her red ringlets and inhaling the perfume of her hair. "And smells smell better."

She smiled and looked away, pretending not to care.

He slid his hands up the sides of her waist. "Lace feels… lacier." He moved them up until the heels of his hands brushed the edge of her bra cups where the tautness of her ribs melded into the soft sides of her breasts.

She reached back, grabbed his wrists and shoved his hands down until they were down at her waist again. "Keep your head in the game, tough guy," she admonished. "I'm not interested in rushing things. Besides, someone could see us." She started to make a nervous glance towards the door, but Akihiko caught her chin in his first two fingers and gently guided her face back for another kiss.

They gripped each other in a tight embrace and explored each other's mouths, lips hungry and alive with sensation. Mitsuru kissed him aggressively the way he liked, sucking fiercely on his lip, conquering his mouth with her tongue. Akihiko let her take control, leaning back against the wall, his body growing weak and boneless with pleasure.

She loved Akihiko for this—his willingness to submit to her, his earnest desire to follow where she led. Most men she knew were insecure and chased after women who were weak-willed and easy to dominate, but Mitsuru was a natural born leader and the thought of mindlessly knuckling under to a man repulsed her. On the other hand, she felt distain for the spineless men who let women walk all over them out of cowardice or incompetence. She desired the perfect blend of strength and submission and found it in no man but Akihiko. He didn't surrender control because he had to, but because it was his natural desire. He had the stones to be attracted to her strength and intelligence rather than intimidated by it, but he wasn't afraid to speak his own mind and fight for his beliefs.

He did things his own way and she loved that about him. While most guys were constrained by the rigid Rules of Masculinity, he forged his own path. Mitsuru had heard boys at school make firm statements like, "Real mean don't wear pink," but she always believed these rigid guidelines were just a sign of insecurity. A real man would feel secure in his sexuality no matter what damn color he was wearing. And so it was with Akihiko. He withstood plenty of ribbing from his classmates over the "preppy" way he dressed, but he never changed his style to conform to peer pressure. He liked dressing that way, Mitsuru found it attractive, and to hell with what anyone else thought.

And people could think whatever they liked about her, too. They could call her a bitch for speaking her mind, or gossip that she was intimidated by domineering men, but she found true strength in Akihiko's submission rather than his muscle. For a man in this culture, conforming to the mask of machismo was easy. Having the courage to be sensitive and different was what took guts.

She was lost in her thoughts and lightheaded from his kiss when she heard the door to the equipment room click. She and Akihiko stepped apart from each other and whirled to look at the door, but it had clicked shut, not open. She must not have closed it all the way when she first stepped inside.

She and Akihiko exchanged a look in silence. Kissing in itself was no scandal, but to say their relationship was off the public record was a severe understatement. Even the other members of S.E.E.S. didn't know about it.

Akihiko opened the door and looked out into the gymnasium. It was empty, the overhead lights were all turned off, and the hardwood floor gleamed with the faint reflection of ambient light from the windows. In the distance, he heard the click of another door shutting, the one that lead outside from the gym.

"Who was it?" Mitsuru pressed behind Akihiko, looking around.

"I don't know. Probably just someone walking through the gym as a shortcut."

Mitsuru straightened her clothes and resumed her businesslike demeanor. "We ought to head back to the dorms. Our fearless leader wants to go to Tartarus tonight and I've got homework before that."

Akihiko cracked his knuckles. "Good. I've been meaning to break in my new gloves." He glanced down and picked up something small and pink from the floor. It looked like an origami animal. "Huh? I don't remember this being here."

Mitsuru took it from him, feeling the eerie sense of déjà vu like it should have meant something to her but she couldn't remember what. It looked like a lioness, but it was slightly crumpled and marred with a footprint from being stepped on. "Someone must have dropped it."

Akihiko shrugged. "We can throw it away on our way out."

Mitsuru nodded, but tucked the lion into her book bag and thought about _kusudama_ lilies.


End file.
